


Hookcross

by Praxus Goforth (PraxusGoforth)



Category: The Rat Patrol
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 21:46:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7818451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PraxusGoforth/pseuds/Praxus%20Goforth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dietrich faces scrutiny from his superiors and a moral dilemma.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hookcross

The Rat Patrol  is the property of MGM.

* * *

 

He’d never heard the song piping through the radio before. It was an American song, something pretty, a soft woman’s voice crooning about a lost love, or something equally sentimental. Perhaps a soldier killed in battle. Such songs were popular these days, or so Dietrich supposed. He never could qui te keep up with popular trends, but h e enjoyed the American songs. Much catchier than what was coming out of Germany lately.

The nightclub—a word far too glamorous for a slightly remodeled mud brick warehouse—was unusually empty for this time of evening. Things had been heating up in the local environs recently, which naturally kept  away locals and  foreigners alike , but even a downtrodden lounge like this one could usually count on a couple dozen or so officers and personnel  on a sultry Sunday evening. Dietrich didn’t mind, however.  The only good thing about the desert, so far as he had come to know, was the stillness of the empty sand. Tonight was a little taste of that, for however long it lasted.

He sat alone at a table against the wall, a half-empty glass of something whose name he couldn’t remember before him. He kept his eyes on the smoldering cigarette nestled between his index and middle fingers, watching as the smoke trailed upwards in dizzy spirals and  faded into the dusty air. Cap removed,  collar unbuttoned, he looked almost weary at the table against the wall, but of course, in this desert campaign, who wasn’t? It was not a night for drinking, not even the lonely kind, as his neglected glass of amber liquid attested. An onlooker could be forgiven for thinking those were his intentions, although no one could claim to have even seen the captain drunk. Discipline was the  Heer code after all—self-perfection through discipline.  He had burned his way through quite a lot of cigarettes by now.

At the bar on the far side o f the room, there sat a man in o fficer’s uniform nondescript enough to never be recognized as attached to any particular unit. He was not a large man, but somehow gave the impression of inhabiting a  sizable area of  space . His age was indeterminate, perhaps somewhere between forty and sixty, his hair lightened by the sun, his face craggy. Dietrich instinctively feared this man, not the least because he had seen him several times in the past few days, always in places he did not quite have a purpose to be , always distant enough to be inconspicuous. Dietrich watched him from the corner of his eye, although he was sure the man was aware he had attracted his attention. They played the game, the blond man pretending he wasn’t following him, Dietrich pretending he didn’t notice , and both pretending there was no game .

The man at the bar was accompanied by an attractive woman with dark hair. She was not very young, but even from this distance Dietrich could see a spark of vitality that

lent her an air of confidence and sensuality. She was a stranger to him, but he knew she was here with the blond man from they way they moved around each other. Never exactly speaking, nor quite making eye contact, but communicating in the way only trained personnel could manage. His hands were a little damp as he lit another cigarette. 

“ Herr Hauptmann , ” he heard a familiar voice somewhere to his left. Turning, he saw the elongated, pudgy face of Lieutenant Schwarz, permanently burned pink by the desert sun, his uniform impeccably pressed and tidy. “ Oberleutnant ,” Dietrich returned with a brief nod. He continued his examination of the cigarette, half an eye on Schwarz as he took a seat opposite him. 

“May I offer you congratulation on your success with the Marcello affair?”

“Certainly,” Dietrich replied, an eyebrow a trifle raised. He watched as Sc hwarz removed his black gloves, completely free of the ubiquitous dust of the land, and placed them neatly on the table. “You know, of course, that I myself performed a similar maneuver on the gas lines in Tuqrit. The results were, perhaps, not quite so impressive, but  a job done is a job done, no? ” Schwarz attempted nonchalance, but could not disguise the shard of pettiness in his voice, nor his intent gaze as he waited for Dietrich’s reaction.

“ Of course,” he said evenly. He glanced at the black gloves, a sensation of mild disgust creeping into his gut at the thought of how they fit so smoothly over Schwarz’s hands. “It was from you,  Oberleutnant , that I received the idea.” 

Schwarz nodded but did not smile. Perhaps he had detected the irony in Dietrich’s tone, although he ’d thought he was quite adept at hiding it now.

A few moments silence pressed upon them, Dietrich vaguely aware that the radio had stopped playing. He was sorry the song was over. “Please, can’t I buy you a drink,  Oberleutnant ? The house owes me anyway.”

“No, no. I do not drink alcohol. You have seen the new material from the  Ministry of Health ?” he asked briskly.

“I  believe it crossed my path.”

“The  Führer abstains completely. Great discipline. Under his advisory such progress had been made in the field of health. Since I have begun following his personal guidelines I have noticed a remarkable difference in stamina and well-being, a remarkable difference. Truly great strides, don’t you agree?”

“Very great,” Dietrich replied . “But I ’m afraid not all of us are able to exhibit the same  amount of self-control.” He waved the cigarette idly through the air, Schwartz following the trail with pinched eyes.

“Yes, this habit of yours…” he began, a crisp note of disapproval coloring his tone, “Some would say it is unbecoming of a man in your position, even—” he lowered his voice slightly, as if his next words were too startling for normal volumes—“ contrary to the wishes of the  Führer and the legislation he has mandated. Soon, no doubt, the logical future steps will be taken and the practice finally outlawed altogether. When the war has been won we will see a Germany in which smoking is regarded as too lowly for even the poorest laborer! All for  the benefit of the Reich.” C hest puffed out slightly, staring somewhere into the distance as if he could really see such a world, he s eemed the paradigm of ecstasy in this vision of the future.

Dietrich  swirled the contents of his half-filled glass with one hand, the much-maligned cigarette dangling between his lips where he knew Schwartz would not be able to forget about it.  “The  Führer has such high standards for his  little soldiers, does he not? But I think  even he will be unable to put a complete end to this lowly habit.”

He met the lieutenant’s eyes to find indignation and disbelief . He resisted the twitch gathering at the corner of his mouth and kept his face deliberately neutral. “Perhaps you have drunk too much,  Hauptmann ,” Schwartz blustered after a moment of silence. 

“That may well be,  Oberleutnant . I can see the benefits of abstinence after all , thanks to you,” Dietrich returned.

Schwartz’s face deepened to red, certain he was being made a fool of, hesitant to bring the hostility out into the open. His speech became more erratic, slurred by emotion, voice tight —“Herr Hauptmann , do not make light of such matters! You may be a celebrated war hero but no one is above suspicion!” His eyes briefly darted towards the couple sitting at the counter, neither talking to each other, but patient, alert, watching. Dietrich felt the scrutiny behind their feigned indifference , exhibited here in the outraged lieutenant. 

In one still moment, Dietrich pulled himself back. He adopted the demeanor that had served him well in his time in the  Korps , the attitude he was finding more and more necessary as this war progressed . “My dear lieutenant, it is you who would, as the English say, make a mountain of a mole hill.  I spoke in jest, inelegantly, I’m afraid, and I am sorry to have offended you.” Subtly, he removed the cigarette from sight. Schwartz seemed not to notice, instead watching him with cold, narrowed eyes. “I certainly hope this war is not causing you to lose your sense of humor,  Oberleutnant .” He leaned back in his chair, utterly nonchalant. “I meant only that I am not a great man as is our leader, and as such every day is a struggle , for a lesser man like myself, to live up to his crite ria .”

Schwartz’s eyes slowly lost their hardened look, face returning to its customary pink. Dietrich did not show his relief. He knew the shade of suspicion still lingered there in the lieutenant’s  mind, too ephemeral to  quite pin down, but difficult to ignore. Slowly,

Schwartz gave a deep nod, and Dietrich relaxed a fraction now that his apology had been accepted. “If I cannot give a toast, Herr Hauptmann, at least allow me to say, Heil Hitler!” He stuck his outraised hand into the air, the salute as natural to him as breathing, and awaited Dietrich’s response. Several people turned around in their seats at the exclamation, which even here in this officer-populated denizen, was unusually enthusiastic. 

Dietrich looked at Schwartz from lidded eyes, seeing that flabby, pink hand that li ved under black gloves stiff in the air. In a moment he would have to move, he would have to do something, but—

“There is a telephone call for you,  Herr Hauptmann ,” a voice said beside him. He saw a German corporal in a slight bow, pointing towards the far wall, where  the telephone resided. Dietrich rose from his chair. “Excuse me, please,  Oberleutnant ,” and he left Schwartz with his arm outstretched and  went to the phone. 

“ Das ist Hauptmann Dietrich,” he spoke into the piece.

A woman’s voice responded, “Hold for transfer to Colonel Straussman.”

A series of clicks, then the familiar voice of the colonel, his direct superior. Dietrich did not look back at the table to see what Schwartz was doing and thought only of what he knew Straussman was about to tell him.

"Dietrich, this is Colonel Straussman. Your appeals has come through, and precisely as I told you it has been emphatically denied." He sounded impatient, annoyed, but he always did.

Despite himself, he felt a cold gripping in his stomach. " I am sorry to hear that, Major. But I was under the impression that the council would fully investigate— "

"You are in no position to argue, Hauptmann! This had been delayed long enough and your orders are perfectly clear. I expect them carried out immediately."

Dietrich’s eyes scanned back and forth rapidly. "Colonel, I can't help but wonder if this is really necessary. If the Feldmarschall himself has not issued the command can we be sure...” he paused and forced himself to say it, “of it's full legality?"

" Oberkommado is our authority here, and Rommel is a long way from the desert.  I won’t have you impeding OKW commands any further.  You do what I tell you or I will bring the force of military law down on you, Dietrich. I want that man dead by mor ning and the report on my desk. "

His voice sounded tight even to him.  "Yes, sir. I will see to it."

"I expect it. Good night, Hauptmann."  The line  cut  and there was only static.

Dietrich replaced the receiver with a very pregnant click . He felt in his pocket for another cigarette before remembering he was supposed to be rationing them because his latest shipment had been ransacked en route. No matter, he needed one now more than ever.  Straussman’s order had been imminent for  days , but like so many other things, he’d tried to send the issue to the back of his mind until it was necessary to deal with it. It seemed the time had come. This order, even more than most, he would take no pleasure in following.

Mind preoccupied with his dealings for tonight, he completely forgot that he’d left Schwartz waiting until he returned to the table to find the lieutenant gone and his drink still waiting there for consumption.  He was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude that he wouldn’t have to deal with Schwartz anymore, supremely thankful that for once, something had gone in a way that made his life a little easier. He settled back in his chair and resumed his solitary stare- down with the contents of the half-empty glass.

His ruminations were interrupted ten or fifteen minutes later.  “Can you spare a cigarette?” a woman’s voice said.

He looked up and saw the dark haired woman who’d accompanied his  not-so- subtle tail.  He had almost forgotten about her.  A quick glance around the bar informed him that the blond man had disappeared. He blew out a stream of smoke as he took her in.

“For a beautiful lady I can always spare a cigarette, although they are getting harder to come by.”

“Ladies or cigarettes?” she returned with a quirked up lip.

Without further ado, she pulled up the chair opposite him and sat, sliding it in just a little closer, so they could lean towards each other to talk. Dietrich offered her a cigarette and held a match close to her mouth as she lit it and breathed in. The rush of smoke that fell from her lips looked like ecstasy, and she sighed deeply. 

“You know, I suppose, that women of the  Werhmacht are forbidden to smoke. ” He leaned back in his chair, observing her enjoying the cigarette. He was fascinated by the perfectly sharp line where her lipstick met her natural skin, outlining her mouth in artificial red.

“If I recall, smoking is also banned in officer’s clubs. But Hakeem has never told me to stop so I don’t think I will.” She pointed the cigarette in the direction of the bar owner, semi-hidden in the far corner behind a lattice screen, where he preferred to observe his customers. 

Her accent was a little odd, something regionally Austrian that he could not quite identify. A native speaker, though—he could always tell. Although it couldn’t have made much difference to him if she was a foreign agent or one of his own people. Either way, he was walking through a minefield. Looking at her bright red lips, he didn’t mind.

They talked for a while. Now and then he made a quick survey of the room, looking for the blond man, but he never reappeared, and the dark haired woman proved she had eyes only for him. It was almost pleasant.

Around ten o’clock, they left together, not touching each other, but close. Dietrich could not imagine putting his arm around her waist and leading her out of the club, but he did let her follow him into his car and back to his quarters.

* * *

Sometime in the night, he awoke to rustling sounds.  Slowly, he opened his eyes. The room was dark, a few weak streams of moonlight filtering through the gauzy curtains, but he saw the bobbing light of a flashlight moving in the darkness surrounding h is desk. He put a hand to the sheets next to him and felt them still warm, but empty. He heard the muted jiggle of a desk drawer, papers shuffling quietly, objects being examined and carefully replaced. He listened for a while, then closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

* * *

 

An hour of two before dawn, he woke again as the windows lightened to a deep blue gray. The woman was back beside him, eyes closed. Her lipstick had smeared, ruining the severe outline and smudging past her lips until her mouth looked strangely large and lopsided. He got up quietly, careful not to disturb her, but she did not stir.  In the dim light, he watched her sleeping. He wondered what, if anything, she’d found to report back to the blond man. Had he perhaps talked in his sleep? What could he have said anyway that would cause him trouble? She still looked beautiful.

He went to the attached office, which looked exactly as he’d left it. Every drawer was closed, every piece of paper in proper order. He closed the door softly behind him and sat at the desk . His face crumpled into his hands, elbows on knees, and he sat and felt a vein throbbing above his left eye, slow and steady. He could do it. He could pick up the phone and make a quick call and  satisfy Straussman and make a concerted effort to simply never think about it again. One more failure was too many. How would it look? He could not afford another failure. He rubbed his brow to make the throbbing stop, but it didn’t do any good.

He wanted a cigarette, but instead he picked up his phone and made a call. He spoke briefly and listened to the answer on the other end. It was less than thirty seconds later when he hung up.

Dietrich went back to his room and found his clothes, tossed on the floor. He dressed silently, hoping not to disturb the dark haired woman. There was just enough light to see his reflection in the mirror. His uniform was rumpled, his face unacceptably stubbly. He combed his fingers through his hair until it looked decent. What a fine soldier he was. He looked away from the mirror.

He gave the woman a last glance at the door and was overwhelmed with unexpected pity.  Somewhere too, there was anger. Her smeared lipstick was tragic and cruel all at once. He closed the door behind him, knowing she would be gone when he returned. 

He got his staff car without waking his driver and made a stop before  heading to the German’s local center of operations.  Headquarters  was not far, a half mile or so, a confiscated private hotel that had once been the finest in the pathetic seaside town and was now riddled with bullet holes, its plaster facade crumbling from constant mortar fire. The street stood empty in the flat twilight as Dietrich parked in a dark corner. He set his shoulders very resolutely as he mounted the front steps, like an iron bar grew through his back, like he had learned a decade ago, like too often he had forgotten of late.

Above the front desk in the former lobby hung a massive flag of the Third Re ich. They were everywhere these days , but he could not stop himself from glancing at it instinctively, its vivid colors so shocking in the drab lobby of a drab city.  It looked so cruel and powerful and different from the flag he knew from his childhood, the flag he had grown up under.  Somewhere deep in his gut he felt a spasm of anger and some sticky awareness of disgust that frightened him until he looked away from the reaching arms of the hook-cross. It meant nothing. He pushed away the feeling and wished he hadn’t looked. The private at the front desk was busy on the telephone and gave him only a cursory glance and a vague salute. He knew him by sight and an officer milling about HQ was no odd sight at these hours.  Sometime in the last few weeks a cell block had been installed in the rear of the building and it was here that Dietrich directed himself. He opened the door to the main room and found it, as he’d hoped, manned by only one soldier.

“ Stabsgefreiter ! I am here to conduct a private interview with the prisoner.” 

The corporal looked at him, alarmed, immediately jumping up from his  sedentary position at the lone desk and standing at attention. “Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann. But I must see—”

Dietrich interrupted him by grabbing a clipboard from the desktop and holding up a hand for silence. He flipped through the pages, clicking his tongue in apparent annoyance as though he found its contents most displeasing. “What is your name, soldat?” He did not even bother to look at the soldier in question, far too immersed in the unsatisfactory results of his clipboard scrutiny. 

“ Stabsgefreiter Dominik Wexler, Herr Hauptmann.” He stood at attention straight as ever.

“Wexler. I will remember that. If you had these papers in order you would see that the prisoner is under my charge as my captive. Now you will allow me to see my prisoner.” He threw the clipboard down and waited with an air of imperious confidence. 

“Jawohl,” was all Wexler could manage as he  fumbled with the keys from a desk drawer and unlocked  the door to the cell block proper. Dietrich gave him a smart salute, almost feeling guilty, and closed the door behind him.

There was one prisoner in the middle cell. Fair, British, perhaps thirty. He sat up from his reclining position on the bed, eyes wide in expectation. His uniform marked him as a sergeant, his general state of disarray how long he had been confined here. When he caught sight of the German his face twisted in a sneer of disdain. "You. What do you want with me now?"

Dietrich paused, registering the  contempt in the soldier's eyes. He pulled up a chair from the desk in the corner and positioned it in front of the cell, just inside the prisoner's reach. The sergeant had by now stood and watched the captain taking his seat with incomprehension. 

"Would you like a cigarette, sergeant?" He pulled one out of the pack and  wedged it between his lips while he waited for a reply. 

"Just explain what this is about. Sir." There was no respect in his voice.

Dietrich lit his cigarette and watched the end catch fire. "My commanding officer wants me to have you shot." He leaned back in the stiff wooden chair, cigarette  held between his thumb and fingertips, flicking the cigarette lighter open and closed idly. "You see, we have a new order from Berlin since you have been in captivity. Captured commandos are to be executed as spies." He replaced the lighter in his pocket and watched the slow downward movement of the sergeant's face as his words sunk in. 

The sergeant exploded. "Bloody bastards! I'm a British soldier!" He walked up to the bars and took hold of them as if he wished they were Dietrich's neck. He was near enough to touch, but Dietrich did not move.

"I know, Sergeant. Now you will shut up and listen carefully!" His voice rose until he was almost shouting before he caught himself and remembered the guard outside. He began to speak in a steady, rapid voice. "Yesterday morning my patrol ambushed a British convoy. I took six men prisoner, one of them badly wounded. He died last night." The sergeant started to cut in with a heated cry. "Sergeant, please!" Now he was yelling. He calmed himself. "He is going to be buried under your name. You will assume his identity and become a prisoner and spend the rest of this war in a German POW camp. If you reveal to anyone your true identity, you risk both our lives. If you tell anyone what I have done, I will deny everything and I will have you shot. Do you understand, Sergeant?"

His eyes narrowed and he stood very still. "What about the other men in his squadron?"

"They will be moved to a  separate camp. They won't  ever  see you." He exhaled a stream of smoke that almost obscured the two men from each other.

The sergeant said nothing for a long moment. His hands still clutched the bars but they hung limp. His mouth was set in a tight line that Dietrich imagined he wore when he had given his men the order to charge. "Why are you doing this for me?"

Dietrich knocked the chair back several inches as he stood. He paced a few steps, hands behind his back, and said matter-of-factly, “I have been given orders which violate military law. Not only that, they violate the code by which I operate as a German officer.” He met eyes with the sergeant and saw there some resemblance  to the cautious trust he’d seen more than once in those other sergeants who had so often made his life hell. The British man finally nodded. 

"Your identity tags," Dietrich said. From his breast pocket he removed the round disks he had taken from the dead soldier and handed them to the sergeant, who likewise ripped off his own and replaced them with the dead man's. Dietric h  put the still-warm tags in his pocket, where they would stay until he had another visit with the dead soldier.

“Well, S ergeant, it looks like the war is over for you.” 

“I’ll take that cigarette now, if you don’t mind.”

He had exactly one left.  Dietrich lit it for him , and  the sergeant smoked it like it was water in the desert. With it stuck in the corner of his mouth he glanced at the door and whispered,  "Captain. You could let me go. I can get out of the city and find my line without anyone knowing." 

The captain gave him a smile that better resembled a grimace.  "I hardly think so. I ha ve enough trouble with commandos  to leave one lying around."

He must have earned his stripes through sheer persistence. "Captain, why don’t you come with me? You’re finished here. Germany can’t win this campaign, you know it’s just a matter of time. We can use good men like you.”  He spoke like an old friend, conspiratorial, earnest.  Dietrich saw he meant it. 

He didn’t want the cigarette anymore. He let the last two inches fall to the ground, a little trailing ember of orange, and crushed it under his boot.  “Sergeant, I will tell you frankly I have no intention of defecting. I may not be willing to betray my conscience, but I cannot join my country’s enemies. No matter what it comes to.”

The sergeant nodded. He looked genuinely sorry. Suddenly, he snapped to attention and gave Dietrich a very proper salute. With a funny feeling in his gut, Dietrich returned it and walked out. He hoped it was the last time he saw the British man.

* * *

 

Outside in the hallway Dietrich stopped to lean his head against the wall, thankful he was alone. Much remained to be done. Papers to be shuffled, doctors and guards to be reassigned, those tedious desktop things that some days—most days, recently—were  almost preferable to  patrolling under the sun and across the sand.  He closed his eyes and felt the steady rumble of the tanks, the hot desert wind, the smell of freshly discharged gunpowder, and he shivered. When had this sense of malaise come upon him? Not in Germany when it still knew peace, not in the mud of France, no, it must have been here in this losing war that he must keep fighting. Duty c alled, and he always answered .

A barrage of running footsteps snapped him from his reverie. Opening his eyes, he saw his young lieutenant sprinting down the hallway. Dietrich stepped up to me et him as he breathlessly spoke:  “ Hauptmann! Raid on the north section. Those verdammt commandos again!”

This was his war.  He led the way down the hallway, issuing orders in rapid staccato.  “Get me  Oberleutnant Beckenbauer. Our  depot isn’t stocked yet , they must be disrupting the landing zone. Find  Achen , Leutnant, have him assemble the men, full arms, proceed at once to the north section. And get my car!”

The  lieutenant hurried to do his bidding with a brief “Jawohl!” and a quick sprint to the telephone office on the other end of the building. Dietrich checked his Luger was loaded as he walked at a half-jog. Colonel Straussman and his ugly business would wait. 

 


End file.
